On the Scene: Saving the Arts in Union Square

UNION SQUARE is a pretty, green park that sits at the crossroads of Broadway and Park Avenue. Ten years ago, it was a dangerous, drug-infested place, but a government face-lift has changed all that. Now any midday you can find couples lolling about on the grass, oldsters chatting on park benches, and dazed office-workers eating lunch and squinting into the midday sun.

Thus it was with some surprise that I discovered, one sunny Tuesday in late May, a group of respectable-looking white people gagged and bound at the north end of the park. The scene was made even more peculiar by the placards they were wearing around their necks.

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Erich Eichman

UNION SQUARE is a pretty, green park that sits at the crossroads of Broadway and Park Avenue. Ten years ago, it was a dangerous, drug-infested place, but a government face-lift has changed all that. Now any midday you can find couples lolling about on the grass, oldsters chatting on park benches, and dazed office-workers eating lunch and squinting into the midday sun.

Thus it was with some surprise that I discovered, one sunny Tuesday in late May, a group of respectable-looking white people gagged and bound at the north end of the park. The scene was made even more peculiar by the placards they were wearing around their necks.